


Thor & Family's Camping Adventures Part I, In Which The Camping Is A Lie

by 5ofSpades



Series: Thor and Family's Camping Adventures [1]
Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Camping, Community: norsekink, Domestic Bliss?, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Intersex, Intersex Loki, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Jötunn Loki, Lactation, M/M, Mpreg, Other, Slave Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 6,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ofSpades/pseuds/5ofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which Thor Finds a Free Wet Nurse for His Daughter and Free Sex For Himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sif the Golden Haired

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> Instead of allowing Odin to take the Casket and doom the realm to global warming, Laufey instead paid tribute in goods and lives. Better to have some of his people enslaved than all of them doomed to a slow death.
> 
> Jotunn slaves no longer of use were disposed in many ways. One of which was to be fixed to a stake and left to starvation and the exposure of hot Asgard sun.
> 
> Thor, having recently lost Sif (ironically defeated not in battle but by childbirth/ditched Thor for a better man, you decide) and left with their daughter Þrúðr, passed by a stave to which a tiny pregnant Jotunn was tied and getting gang-raped by the locals. Thoughts turned to the time of his wife's own pregnancy, Thor scattered the peasants and took the slave home, who gave labor shortly after to a son.
> 
> Then upon discovering his new slave had magic, and was oh so witty, Thor embarked on educational warrior camping trips with his daughter and two new favorite slaves as soon as the babies were old enough. Cue family adventure times.
> 
> \+ If Loki wet nurses Þrúðr along with his own  
> \+ If Loki wet nurses Thor too, the big baby  
> \+ If one camping trip had to be cut short because Thor got shot with an arrow to the knee

**_Sif the Golden Haired_ **

Sif was unhappy. 

They were well-matched, they all said. Sif the golden-haired and Thor the golden Prince. And of course Thor, the greatest warrior, the staunchest defender of Asgard, would take no lesser than a shieldmaiden for wife. But they frowned and made her shed her armor, and tisked when she tried to take up her shield. She should act her station now. Why, just look upon Frigga AllMother. See how she put down her arms in favour of the loom, when she was made Odin’s bride?

And Thor, brave and careless and unobservant Thor, rode happily from one quest to the next with The Warrior Three, never Sif and The Warrior Three again. When he showered his wife with presents obtained from his travels, they felt more like mockeries than gifts.

Sif was happy though when she was with child. Listening to the steady beat of the child’s tiny but strong heart, she dreamt of a younger half-sibling for Ullr, great archers and warriors both, together with their mother, bounding across the plains of the nine realms in search of adventure and glory.

The irony was not lost on the golden-haired one then, when she arrived in Valhalla not through combat but childbirth.

**


	2. Þrúðr the Strong

**_Þrúðr the Strong_ **

While Thor mourned for his bright wife, Thor’s staff were left scrambling for a wet nurse who would stay. Þrúðr had strength plenty and anger to match, even while she was fed upon the breasts of her mother. The absence of Sif’s familiar milk and heartbeat made the infant’s tempers flare. After scorched tapestries, singed hair, a room set on fire by lightning, and a most unfortunate young maid with burns upon her face, Þrúðr was left with goats’ milk held in a bottle by Thor as the alternative.

**


	3. Tributes from Jötunheimr

**_Tributes from Jötunheimr_ **

Now before Þrúðr, before the too-early departure of Sif, and indeed even before Thors’ wedding (or adulthood), there was a war. Asgard was ever ready for war, and the Æsir born warriors, especially since the other realms and races, in their petty jealousy, would not leave the golden ones in peace.

So the latest war raged between Asgard’s shining sons and Jötunheimr’s wretched frost giants upon the scorched landscapes of Midgard, as primitive humans cried and hid and died, unavoidable collateral damage under their gods’ crushing might.

But as goodness and justice always prevailed, so did Asgard. And it was with a scowl upon its face that King Laufey of Jötunheimr ceded land, property, and people to Odin AllFather. Better this humiliation than losing The Casket of Ancient Winters. Better to lose some sons of Jötunheimr to slavery than for all to roast under the heated sun of a slowly warming planet.

And that was how Asgard gained a yearly tribute of frost giant thralls, blue and monstrous beasts of burden to dig in Æsir mines, mend Æsir houses, and shore up Æsir walls. Some whispered that these beasts, especially the smaller ones, were also good for other things. But they were just rumours unfit for polite ears. For why would the sons of Asgard pollute their own blood with the sludge of the Jötnar?

Little of all this mattered much to Thor. Oh, it did matter, for he was Prince of the realm. But on a personal level, no, not really. Having had many unfortunately up close examinations of their twisted blue faces, often at the end of his sword or the tip of his spear, Thor was sick of frost giants. Bad enough that one or two would lumber past him on the streets, he’d rather not invite any into his own halls. 

**


	4. Blue Scarecrow

**_Blue Scarecrow_ **

Thor took a frost giant thrall into his own halls in the end. Not because it was fashionable, but because even a sky god was susceptible to random whims.

The Prince was riding back from a solitary hunt (rare occurrences these days, and never too far, for the daughter of a god was most demanding) when he saw an unusual sight, a blue scarecrow stretched upon a stave amidst a fallowed field.

Thor dismounted from his horse and trod into the field for a closer look, only to recoil when he realized it was no scarecrow, but the naked form of a very small giant, a cast-away slave. The giant’s pallid skin blistered under the mid-noon sun. Its greasy and matted hair hung over knife-sharp features. Dark welts, cuts, bite marks and finger-shaped bruises mapped its body, converging in concentration upon skinny thighs. And between those thighs lay the strange dual sexes of a Jötunn, bloodied and caked in dried fluids, the cavities swollen with infection and ill use. The vagabonds and peasants around these fields must have debased themselves upon it under the covers of night. But what stayed Thor’s steps were not its empty eyes or sawed-off horn stumps, but its swollen belly. Not all Æsir worried about the thinning of their blood, especially if the evidence was to be denied and disposed of.

Thor stepped up to the stave to give the giant a light slap. The wretch’s head lolled to the side, and its whole body shuddered. Not dead then. Now that he was close, Thor could see the thrall’s mouth was sewn shut tight with crude leather, the flesh already knitting around the thick strip, flecks of blood clotting around the mouth and all the way down past the chin. A sorcerer then, quieted in the manner that all Jötnar sorcerers were silenced as a precaution against their dark Seiðr. The owner must have taken off the customary muzzle to be saved for another slave, and opted for a cheaper solution. Why waste perfectly functional property on a broken one?

Perhaps it was the creature’s pitiful state, for Thor did not often saw fit to exercise his might upon the truly weak, or perhaps it was memories of Sif’s own disastrous labour, that inspired a rare spark of sympathy. Thor cut down the giant, hefted it upon his overburdened horse next to furs and games, and headed for home at a brisk pace, hoping the slave won’t expire along the way and trouble him with the dumping of its body.

**


	5. Uncompensated Employee

**_Uncompensated Employee_ **

Surprisingly, the Jötunn survived the trip. Thor left the slave to his retainers and gave the matter no further thought, sure that it would be properly taken care of and integrated into his household. And so he almost did not recognize it a few days later, when it was brought to him as a candidate for Þrúðr’s wet nurse, if not for its swollen belly and the fact that there was precisely one giant in Thor’s household. 

The Jötunn slave cleaned up nicely. Properly washed and brushed, its dark hair curled around blue shoulders, lending some softness to its hawk-like face. A long white shift covered most of its blue flesh, a new muzzle hid its scarred lips, and light bronze bracelets adorned its wrists and ankles instead of rough rope bindings. The retainer recommended it for its pliancy and obedience, but more for how it was already heavy with milk for its own whelp despite the flatness of its chest. See how even now excess milk made wet spots upon its thin shift. Properly fed, it would make a passing nurse for the young Princess until a more suitable lady can be found. What no one said, but most thought at least in passing, was that this one, unlike all the others before, had not the option to quit.

**

The slave gave birth to its own shortly after it started its assigned task. It became a common sight around the halls of Bilskirnir, an underdeveloped Jötunn with a very small baby strapped to its back and the Princess in its arms. Thor almost took the babe for an Æsir, until closer inspections revealed little bumps on its tiny forehead, where horns would one day grow. One of the retainers suggested selling the halfbreed, so that its dam can focus on the Princess. Thor scuffed at such sheer stupidity amongst his own staff. He was a warrior, and never made much study of the Jötnar, but fought them enough to know that giants were capable of carrying very long grudges over slights large and small.

Time passed, and a more suitable wet nurse was never found. Þrúðr cried and screamed when she was bereft of the blue teats she’s grown accustomed to, and would not sleep unless placed next to the slave’s own child. Even Thor found familiarity with the presence of the two Jötnar, whenever he spent time with his daughter. 

And so it was on a wet and dreary afternoon, when all four of them were boxed in the nursery by heavy rain, that the slave drew the runes for Loki and Váli upon a table with water. The Prince was mildly surprised at the slave’s literacy, but mostly found it convenient that he no longer had to address both dam and whelp with “hey” or “you”.

**


	6. Celebrity Gossip

_**Celebrity Gossip** _

Thor was quite pleased to find his whims serving him well. Now with the Princess in her new wet nurse’s capable hands, the Thunderer had time again for hunts and games and drinking with his friends. Too bad adventures of a more epic sort would have to wait yet a few more years, when the girl older, and can be taken along.

Meanwhile, the slave was good at finding small adventures for the Princess right at home. Together with the children, Thor hunted dragons in the garden’s overgrown under-bushes, tamed great bears of Jötunheimr in the puppy kennels, explored brave frontiers in the attic, sank enemy long boats in the bathtub, and watched a thousand different skies upon an enchanted nursery ceiling and listened to their stories, as the Jötunn sang the babes to sleep.

While Þrúðr squealed and tumbled across soft rolling pastures with her playmate and nurse closely on her heels, rumors slowly grew.

Why did the Prince leave his new slave’s hair long instead of hacking it off at the root as customary for thralls?

Why were the thrall’s clothes so fine and soft, coloured with expensive dyes and decorated with rich embroideries?

Why was the witch’s seiðr not sealed behind a muzzle? Has it already poisoned the Prince’s ears with its magic?

Maybe the Prince finally found the unspoken pleasures of a Jötunn’s flesh? The great Thor not so virtuous after all!

And look how the halfling whelp shared a nursery with the Princess, and how her father doted upon it.

Váli didn’t help matters any, when he called Thor papa while the latter fed the children pastries after dinner. Loki quickly put a stop to it, and taught the child to use the proper term “Master”. But the damage was already done, the maids’ ears sharp, and soon half of Asgard started wondering if Odin had an illegitimate grandson.

**

“So how is that Jötunn slave of yours?” Fandral asked Thor one evening, when they were both well into their cups.

“What of my slave?”

“Is its cunt as frigid and blue as the rest of it?” The drinks bolstered the warrior’s curiosity as it lowered his inhibitions.

Thor chuckled, “I know that Jötnar blood is dark purple. Jötnar bones white and bleached. But of the topic at hand, I thought you would be the expert, my dashing friend.”

“Never then?” Fandral blinked, surprised at the answer.

“Never. You of all should know my tastes lie in fair haired and fair faced maidens, not dark blue little things with sharp faces.” Thor took another drink, finding it comedic that even his friend bought into the rumors.

“Well, the rumors are persistent. At first I didn’t believe them true, but then I heard that you’ve left the slave un-muzzled at all times, and let it cast its seiðr freely. Is that wise, my friend? And the last I saw it, it was rather nicely dressed for a Jötunn slave.” Very nicely dressed in fact. Too bad Thor was never good at sharing, Fandral thought.

“Þrúðr’s soft skin would have been chafed by the coarse slave garbs when she’s being held, and I like my servants nicely dressed. I have to look at them! As for the muzzle, Loki’s old stiches were getting badly infected. I would not have the infection seep through his blood and chance it tainting the milk for my daughter. And his tricks, they are harmless, and Þrúðr likes them well enough. He also composes good ballads. I have wondered if he was a skald amongst his people, for a warrior he certainly is not,” Thor mused.

**

It was very much worth it, the slow corrosion of the infection, the seeping pain past his lips and into his veins, the burn of hot fever. How surprising that one so bloodthirsty and callous could also have a gentler and gullible side, Loki reflected as he reclined further into the couch with a tome.

The Thunderer would do everything to ensure the wellness of his spoiled daughter. Worsening his own wounds paid off in the end, now that both magic and speech have been returned to him. Hopeless as it started, maybe he yet has a chance this time.

**


	7. Drunk Last Night

_**Drunk Last Night** _

Thor was quite heavy. And inebriated. A dead weight and insensible drunk. Curse the Asgardians and their seasonal hunts. Loki swore the barbarians held them as another excuse to voluntarily poison themselves, and further smother what few sad brain cells they had.

Loki suffered through the whole feast, standing behind Thor and refilling his cups, grimacing as smashed jugs and plates splashed mead and sauce upon his best boots. Now that the Prince was properly drunk beyond his senses, Frigga threw her less than charming son at the help for his aftercare.

**

“Here you are, you dead log,” Loki shouldered open the door to Thor’s rooms and dumped his not-so-stately behind unceremoniously on the only uncarpeted patch of floor.

Loki turned to find something that would serve as a lock pick for the magic-dampening collar forced upon him for the evening, only to freeze as heavy breath ghosted his neck, and a heavier presence moved behind him. Before he could yep out in alarm, a hand slammed him down onto the table before him, as a large body reeking of ozone and alcohol pressed snug against him, pinning his arms with its weight.

Loki tried to struggle, to lift his face from the table top, only for the broad hand upon his neck to tighten and press down harder, making the small giant’s vision swim as he choked.

Displeased that his prey was putting up a fight, Thor slammed the thrashing thing’s head against the table a few times, and with his free hand, ripped the thin tunic from its frame and pulled down its trousers. With a few missed thrusts that slipped against blue thighs, Thor’s cock found its mark, and proceeded to impale the soft folds with zeal.

Loki squeezed shut his eyes and bit his lips, and they bled as his cunt bled while his master rutted him like a dog. So long ago was it last used thus, that his passage could neither take the girth of the cock nor the ferocity of its poundings. How mildly disappointing that the Thunderer was the same as any other man in the end.

Seeing that the Prince wont’ be done for a long time, Loki again cursed the refractory rates of gods. He shifted his own hips and adjusted for a better angle as Thor flipped him over, nosed his chest, and latched his mouth upon one dark nipple. If he couldn’t fight it, he might as well try to enjoy it, such was his philosophy in this life allotted to him. As Thor suckled in great gulps, Loki thought it served the brute right, that his daughter would go without milk tonight.

**

Thor woke the next noon with a splitting headache and his arm slung over a bruised and shivering Jötunn. Thor took in his slave’s battered form, the hand prints upon his neck and flanks, the reopened old stitch wounds compounded by new bite marks upon his lips, the blood and seed between his legs, and drew in a sharp breath. While sweet, mead was an elixir which also brought out the worst hidden parts of men and gods alike. 

**

Asgard’s Prince was not supposed to feel ashamed at how he treated his possessions. Asgard’s famed giant-killer was not supposed to feel dishonoured at breaking a Jötunn’s trust.

Thor was not sure why he felt both.

**

Neither spoke of the incident. Thor sent many fine vestments to his only slave to replace the ones he’s ruined, and a set of practice weapons for Váli, but otherwise took great pains to avoid his daughter’s wet nurse for a month like the coward he was. Finally it was Þrúðr who grew fed up with her father’s absence and demanded his company in her afternoon war games. Thor found out the hard way that the slave had been teaching both children archery in his absence, and Þrúðr’s aim, while wide, was just as dangerous as her half-brother Ullr’s.

Unable to avoid Loki forever, Thor settled back to their usual routines, but with less touching, and the random gifting of things he thought Loki might like. Loki has done nothing but serve him well, and he had used the giant ill in return.

**

Loki on the other hand seemed to have other ideas, as Loki often did. He lingered after drawing a bath for Thor one late evening, his water-splashed white shift wet and nearly transparent. Thor found he could not remove his eyes from the dark blue nipples peaking under the shift, splotches of milk leaking from their tips.

Loki leaned over low, and placed his scarred lips next to Thor’s ear, “I do not mind you like I do those other men, dear Thor. Why do you shy away so, and not take me to bed again?”

Thor swallowed, this close, with steam wafting up around them, he could smell the cool ice of Loki’s skin and the sweetness of his milk. “Loki, you do not have to force yourself-”

“I am not. Unless my Lord is repulsed by this form? These ugly scars? What was it that you said, hmm? That you prefer fairer maidens instead of a thing like me? Perhaps the Thunderer had to be drunk to touch used goods?” The Jötunn whispered.

Thor closed the gap between them and put a stop to the Jötunn’s poisoned words with his own mouth.

**

“So how is that Jötunn of yours? The last I saw him, he looked rather smug,” Fandral asked Thor over a tankard.

“It is most of the time dark blue. Deep purple when excited or played with enough. And a bit cold. But surprisingly soft,” Thor mumbled into his own drink.

“I’m afraid I fail to follow, my friend?” Fandral was puzzled.

“His cunt. You asked before. And do not think that I am ignorant of the bet you lot have going on.”

“Ah friend, I knew you couldn’t control yourself forever,” Fandral laughed at his contrite Prince. It was a good evening indeed. Good company, sweet mead, and the promise of some well-earned winnings to be collected.

**

Loki sipped at a cup of apple cider as Þrúðr and Váli played at swords in the yard. Such a forceful and violent race the Æsir were, even at such a young age. Look at how their barbaric blood tainted Váli, and how the perfect example of their aggressive and base nature manifested in the girl, the get of two of their worst.

Þrúðr grew older by the day, and there would come a day when she had to be weaned. What use would a wet nurse be then? Could he count on her to care enough for her caretaker and playmate to speak for them? Would Thor the Jötunn-slayer be rid of them, or put them to some other uses? Already some of the retainers were clamouring to hire “proper” tutors and finding suitable companions for the girl, lest she be poisoned by the sorcerous thralls, who surely planned treachery? How quickly they forgot it was them who thrust the Princess into his blue arms. But no matter how they harried and harassed, their words would be nothing against the will of the master of the house.

Thor was not the most subtle of men, and Loki was not blind to how Thor’s eyes wandered, nor was he insensible to how Thor’s hands lingered.

They never made it to the bed on that first night. Thor was too drunk by far, and fell asleep on the floor. It was Loki who dragged Thor up onto the bed. It was Loki who crawled in besides him. It was Loki who put one of Thor’s heavy arms across Loki’s back.

How ironic that a people who detested frost giants would just as quickly bed one with equal enthusiasm. How unfortunate that the Prince was not so incorruptible as to resist his own baser urges. How fortunate that the Prince was not so incorruptible as to remain un-swayed by his Jötunn’s wiles. If Loki had to prolong this temporary security for himself and Váli by lying on his back and manipulating a man who played at honour, then so be it. At least the sex was not completely horrid past the initial unpleasant encounter, and Thor was a possessive creature, who was very, very bad at sharing.

**


	8. Adjectives

_**Adjectives** _

“So, the tutor asked Þrúðr to describe her father today, as an assignment,” Thor said to Loki. He was of the opinion that Loki was more than adequate of a tutor for many things. (Were all Jötnar skalds that talented? He never knew before.) But his retainers’ chatterings were getting tiresome, and he’d rather not have their words reach his father, like that whole misunderstanding with Váli’s parentage.

“What did she say of our golden Prince then?” Loki asked while rubbing oil into Thor’s calves.

“Mighty. Heroic. Greatest protector of the realms!” Thor beamed. “What words would you use to describe me, if put to the same question?”

Loki hummed as he drummed long fingers on Thor’s leg, “Energetic. Potent. Deft wielder of an enormous sword. I could say more, but I’d rather have another close-up examination of said enormous sword, my Lord.” So saying, his slender hands snuck up both legs to cup underneath the short towel Thor wore.

Thor was quite pleased, and did his best to match all of Loki’s descriptions with much enthusiasm. Loki purred as the Thunderer’s tongue lapped hungrily at his clit, and noted to himself that the sex wasn’t all that bad indeed. Pity that it often came with an over-inflated ego.

**

And it was the stupidest assignment Loki’d ever heard. Váli would probably regress in his studies through osmosis alone. Those two-faced sycophants had done their Princess great disservice to assume her literacy and scholarly capabilities as poor as her sire’s. (They were still poor, but given her genes, Loki had to give her some allowances.) He thought he could leave her education to these so-called tutors. Clearly that wasn’t the case. 

**


	9. Familiarity

_**Familiarity** _

Thor still took many different people to bed, but went back consistently to his Jötunn thrall. Perhaps it was in the nature of the Æsir, this slow-lived and ever unchanging race, that this foremost son of theirs would find comfort in constants. To return from his duties to the same sight of the blue slave watching over two frolicking children, to have the same blue ears listen to his day-to-day tales, and to hear useful (if not sometimes overly vicious) advices whispered from those scarred lips whenever he asked for them, all these were of a different yet greater attraction than the touch and warmth of new bodies.

The Jötunn was a creature of many talents. As the slave grew more familiar to Thor, and had tested the Thunderer’s various boundaries, so did he show more and more sarcasm and wit with his actions and speech. Perhaps it was in the blood of Thor, whose father, an outlier amongst the Æsir, a wanderer of the worlds, that the son of the AllFather would find fascination with something which was different and new. To have someone who could in rare moments match him temper to temper, to have someone who in a roundabout way made the most cutting and true observations, and to have someone who, if plied with enough wine and mead, would tell honest tales of the same worlds that Thor had travelled to, but through much different eyes, all these were all experiences that Thor could never find with another Asgardian.

**


	10. Favouritism

_**Favouritism** _

Two minor Æsir lords, Eldir and Fimafeng, were dead. One fell into the water while boating and never came up. The other was mauled by wolves in a hunting accident.

The boat was most good and sturdy of Æsir make, and Eldir a good sailor. The forest was not known for wolf packs, and Fimafeng a fine hunter. But most of all, the Æsir were gods, the Æsir lords especially so, and such ignoble deaths were a rare thing for them.

People whispered of sorcery. People whispered of plots. But where was their Prince, their guardian, to guide them?

Ah but Þrúðr, that much spoiled Princess, that poor motherless child, had whined and demanded, until her father took his entire retinue to one of his many retreats, which had made them unreachable for months.

**

Eldir and Fimafeng were friends closer than brothers, and they shared everything. Fimafeng was once in possession of a small Jötunn slave. Not many people alive knew of this, least of all Þrúðr.

But Þrúðr remembered how once when they forayed too deep into the woods, Váli had transformed into a scruffy wolf pup to defend her, and how his red maws had torn the throat of a charging boar to ribbons dripping red.

**

Thor, on the other hand, knew perfectly well who Eldir and Fimafeng were, and what they had in their possessions. He did order a check of past histories on his new thrall when he first obtained him. A Prince of Asgard had many enemies within and without.

It just goes to prove, that even sky gods could be excused to turn a blind eye sometimes.

**


	11. Baby Girl’s All Grown Up

_**Baby Girl’s All Grown Up** _

Þrúðr pushed a visiting Vanir dignitary’s son down a well one sunny afternoon. It was a rather long fall without any water at the bottom to cushion it. Poor fool him, for drawing the Princess’s displeasure, when all the other children had long learned not to provoke her halfling slave. 

Thor apologized to the dignitary in public, but spoke of much different thoughts to Loki in private.

The Princess had grown, and must now find the confines of her gardens smaller in comparison. Surely her growing wanderlust had a hand in fueling her temper. In a few years, she would be ready for her first long adventure under the supervision of her sire, and in the company of the family’s most trusted slaves.

Loki thought that by the same logic, Thor was the one most in need of a trip himself. Certainly Þrúðr wasn’t the one who all but battered an Einherjar in the training grounds, after the same man tried to corner Thor’s favourite slave in the stables only a day before. 

**


	12. Road Trip Prep

_**Road Trip Prep** _

Few more seasons passed. Leafs turned from green to yellow to dust and then grew again, and Þrúðr grew taller with each new notch in the dead apple tree she used to mark her height. Thor slowly packed his bags, and bade his slaves do the same. The Princess was near the same age at which Odin first took Thor to all the worlds and showed him all the wonders that would one day be his due.

Thor commissioned small swords and a shield for his daughter and a tiny crossbow for Váli. For Loki he sent for Dvergar smiths, and bade them make sharp blades of folded steel, a fine pair of daggers set with simple runes and sunstones, so that he may have some means to defend himself, should his silver tongue fail. Over the years Thor had seen what a deft hand Loki was at playing with daggers and darts in Bilskirnir’s private practice field, and how at times he would look longingly at his master’s vast weaponry collections, a fine assortment of blades and steel a thrall wasn’t allowed to touch unsupervised.

On the eve Thor presented the daggers to his favourite slave, Loki thanked him with a deep bow that was for once without a trace of mockery, and begged entrance to Thor’s private chambers to ask for a favour.

**

In the privacy of his master’s rooms and away from the prying eyes of the nine-mothered one, Loki levitated one of his new daggers with one softly uttered word. It twisted and flew swiftly through the air, and in one long clean stroke flayed Loki’s back to the bones alone the line of his spine.

So fast did the blade whistle through the air and slice through flesh, that Thor was left gaping at his slave’s self-inflicted injury before he could grab the dagger out of the air. There were the blue of the skin, the waxy yellow of what little fat was underneath, blue corded muscles neatly sliced as if they were meat under a butcher’s expert knife, and purple blood sizzling at the end of severed blood vessels as their flow was stemmed forcefully by magic. Exposed now that all these layers were pried open, the white of the vertebral column flexed with each laboured breath Loki took.

“What are you doing Loki? Have you lost your mind? Healer! Healer!” Thor raised his voice to its highest volume as he sped for the door.

Only to be halted by Loki’s shaking grasp upon his arm. “No. I am as well as can be, and have no need of healers.”

“No Loki. You are mad. Why would you inflict such injuries onto yourself?” Thor tried to gently pry Loki’s fingers from around his arm, and found the grip firmer than he thought.

“While I can’t claim perfect sanity without being called a lair, I know what I am doing. And this is the favour of which I must ask of you, Thor,” Loki turned his red eyes to meet his master’s panicked stare.

“I don’t understand-” 

“Again, you look without seeing, Master o’ mine. Look closer.”

It was then that Thor noticed the fine golden thread laced tight around Loki’s spine. It circled each segment of bone, biting into tendons only to circle in the exact same manner upon the next vertebra, and next, and next, so that it was looped around the entire spine. Though the thread was thin, it was also strong. Light groves worn by friction were visible upon the bones.

Have some mercy on your poor slave’s back, Master.

Help put more hot towels here, Váli my good child. This blasted damp weather is making it hurt again.

Thor had thought these complaints were of old injuries, and had been mindful of Loki’s back when manhandling him during rougher play, but never had he imagined the possibility of a contraption such as this.

“What manner of sorcery is this?” Thor was aghast.

“A simple siphon. Made of materials similar to the muzzles and collars that I’ve worn now and again. Only instead of silencing me and dampening my senses, this little thread drains my power,” Loki explained.

“And how does this relate to the favour that you ask of me?”

“I ask for your help in removing it.” Loki’s glaze on Thor was intense, twin blood red orbs on his serious blue face.

On one hand, Thor did not wish for his slave to suffer unnecessarily. On the other hand, Thor long had the suspicion that Loki was not the skald that his Prince originally took him for. This suspicion was now all but confirmed. A binding like this indicated danger. 

Was Loki an enemy seiðmaðr before he was cast into slavery? What would be the full scope of his powers should the last of his fetters be removed? Would he lash out at his master and take the chance to escape, once they’ve travelled far from the safety of Asgard? Would he lash out now while he was in her very heart? Frost giants held their grudges long, and Loki had many reasons to hate the golden realm that caged him. Thor’s slaves have already committed murders in the name of revenge. How much further would they go? Were the blood of Eldir and Fimafeng enough to sate their cold anger? 

Should they attack Asgard, Thor knew he himself would be at the forefront to defend her. Before chance brought him past that fallowed field, had he been told that one day he’d meet frost giants he would not wish to fight, he would have laughed. But time and familiarity changed many things.

As if sensing Thor’s hesitation, Loki first tried to persuade with reason, “You have already removed my muzzle and returned to me my voice, when many advised you against it. Have I not been grateful? Have I used the magic you’ve given back in malice towards any of your house? Have I not only used my enchantments to better serve you and your daughter? You trust me with your child, you trust me to sleep in your bed, you even trust me enough to arm me. But yet not magic? Does seiðr, which is but a part of nature, carry such a stigma in Æsir society? Is your own father, the all-wise Odin, not a foremost master of the arts himself?” 

When he sensed Thor’s resolves weaning, Loki laced his master’s fingers with his own, and his eyes turned huge and pleading, “You know I am not a warrior like you. Would you leave me half-crippled and defenseless while you drag me and my child to the deep wilderness of the nine realms? Would you rather not have my full magic by your side? Have I not stood against your enemies as my own and proved my loyalty all these days?”

“Please Thor. You were not touched by seiðr as I was, but even you must sympathize. This accursed thread drains me and blinds me, deafens me to the worlds’ songs. With it so tightly binding me, I walk the world with only half of my senses, and what was bright is made dull, what were open are now barred, and even rested I am plagued by weariness. You have been a good man, a good Master to me. Under your hand was everything made bearable again. But for all our safety I need my magic. I will even show you how to bind me again, once the adventure is done, and to your halls we return. Please, I beg of you.” With this, Loki dropped to his knees. The vessels cut by his wound leaked dark purple blood down his back into puddles on the floor, as some the seals burst with the sudden movement.

Thor finally relented, but now he had other doubts. “I’d free you from the thread’s bindings Loki. But as you said, I have no talent with the arcane as you do. I fear I would simply hurt you in the attempt.”

“Your noble blood alone is enough to melt this thread. I ask for but one drop.”

And Thor watched the thread shimmer away, as a single drop of blood from his pricked finger spattered upon it 

**

It was the blood, but also the intent. Loki was glad that the Thundered could be swayed. He did not fancy bleeding the girl half dry. Even if she wouldn’t tell, and her father could be easily fooled with the excuse of sickness, Váli would be upset for days. 

**

“Who was the man that did this to you? Weaved such a thing into your back.” Thor asked, as he traced the angry long scar along Loki’s spine.

“My first master. From long ago. I was much younger then.”

“First master?” Thor could not recall any man with ability enough to perform magic and craft of such finesse from the names of former masters he’d collected.

“It matters not. You are my Master now, and all of me yours.” Loki turned and curled into Thor’s arms.

**


	13. Skin

_**Skin** _

Thor took leave of his father, and took leave of his mother, then last but not least took leave of his duties to beloved Asgard. He hefted the bag of holdings Loki enchanted for him and left the capital’s golden gates. He was finally going on the long-awaited camping trip with his daughter, to show her the worlds, as the nine were shown to him by his own father.

When he strode past the city’s great outer walls, he was puzzled by what awaited him there. There was Þrúðr with her little red woollen cloak, and Váli cleaving to her like a silent shadow. (Where were his little horns? His hair never hid them fully even back when he actively tried to, and the boy had recently taken to wearing his hair slicked back and tied.) But who was that pale-skinned man with them? Had he seen those brows, that sharp nose before? His gestures as long-boned hands adjusted the cloak around Þrúðr’s shoulders seemed familiar, but not that neck-length black hair, slicked back straight and glossy with oil, fanning against the base of his thin neck like raven feathers.

When the man turned expressive green eyes toward him, Thor immediately thought of familiar red ones.

“Loki?”

“Yes my Prince?” The man tilted his head.

“Where are the scars on your lips?” Thor asked dumbly.

“A simple glamour, as to not alarm people we pass by on our way. Is that the only observation you have, my Prince? Do you prefer my lips scarred? Fear not, the texture is still there.” A pink tongue instead of a deep purple one darted out to give a quick lick of said thin pale lips.

“How? Your skin? Your horns?”

“As difficult as transformation magic is, it comes with ease to me but takes much energy. Now it is finally possible again without that horrid siphon. Besides, I didn’t have full horns to begin with. Is my new form not pleasing to you, dear Thor? Would you prefer blonde curls instead?”

Thor had to admit Loki’s Æsir skin was very pleasing indeed. “I do like it, just as I like your true form. Why the change?”

“Same as why I hid my scars, to not draw extra attention to us. The Jötnar are looked-down upon in many places, ever since Jötunheimr fell.”

**

When Thor said the nine realms, he really meant maybe less than half of them. If they were sneaky, Þrúðr might get to glimpse more from the realms’ edges. Asgard’s relations with many of the worlds had soured over the years, and their shining sons and daughters not quite as welcomed as they were before. Maybe Loki had the right idea to hide behind another skin.

But no matter. Thor was sure many sights and sounds and glory awaited them on this adventure.

**  
 **Part 1 End**


End file.
